White House embraces CBO report

The Obama administration is going all out to turn the Congressional Budget Office’s latest Obamacare report into a positive — and they’re confident they can convince Americans that it’s a good thing if the health care law means they can work less.

In a White House blog post Thursday, Jason Furman, the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, fleshes out the administration’s defense against a wave of publicity over the CBO report that said the health care law will lead to a reduction in work hours.

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John Boehner on CBO Obamacare report

Democrats were livid that the report immediately got turned into a Republican talking point — “2 million lost jobs” — even though the “2 million” figure was really just an equivalent of the reduced work hours, not actual jobs.

So they’re getting more aggressive in their efforts to push two counter-arguments: Obamacare will actually help employment in the short term, and if some people voluntarily work fewer hours, this is the kind of relief overworked families actually need.

In Thursday’s blog post, Furman writes that the report proves the Affordable Care Act will help ease a longstanding problem — people working longer and harder than they want to, at great sacrifice to their quality of life, because they’re afraid of losing health coverage if they don’t.

“Access to health insurance outside the workplace allows people to structure their careers in ways that make sense for them, like by taking time off to raise a family or by retiring when they want to,” Furman wrote. “It also allows people to take risks that further their careers and benefit the economy as a whole, like going part-time in order to go back to school, leaving a job in order to start a business, or moving to a better job, perhaps at an employer that does not offer coverage.”

And that “lost jobs” thing? Not true, Furman says. By putting more money in people’s pockets — through the Obamacare subsidies that will help bring down the cost of health insurance for low and middle-income people — the law will actually increase the demand for goods and services, which should help create jobs. He noted that CBO director Doug Elmendorf testified at a House Budget Committee hearing Wednesday that the law “spurs employment and would reduce unemployment over the next few years.”

“The ACA is thus – today – helping ensure that every American who wants a job can find one,” Furman wrote.

The debate is already turning away from the idea that the report proved Obamacare will actually kick people out of jobs. But that won’t end the argument, as Republicans and conservatives question whether Democrats really want to become the party of less work.

“It turns out that discouraging work is just another one of the wonders of Obamacare,” National Review editor Rich Lowry wrote in POLITICO Magazine. “The old jobs crisis was people not having jobs; the new jobs crisis is people having to work.”

Furman, however, argues that by getting rid of “job lock” — people staying in their jobs for fear of losing health coverage of pre-existing conditions — the law will be good for the economy by letting people switch jobs or start their own businesses.

He also writes that the law will help workers become more productive — because if they’re healthier, they won’t have to take as many sick days — and revives the administration’s argument that people will have more financial security if they don’t have to worry about being bankrupted by an illness.